The red-hot Auburn Tigers are coming off a nail biting 67-60 victory over Arkansas as they get set to face another conference opponent when Georgia comes to town on Saturday.
This weekend’s matchup will be the second contest between the Tigers and Bulldogs this season as Auburn had previously visited Athens, GA in mid-January, escaping with a 70-68 victory.
Led by head coach Mike White, Georgia will enter Neville Arena with a 16-10 record and will be looking to end its three-game losing streak. White is in his third year as the Bulldogs coach and led his team to a 16-16 record in the 2022-23 season with slight improvement in 2023-24 as UGA produced a 20-17 year.
Georgia started the current season unranked in the AP Top 25 and has only appeared in the rankings once over the course of the year as they received a No. 23 bid in week 11. Entering week 11, the Bulldogs seemed like a strong team while showing signs of consistency by holding a 14-2 record. However, since January 15th Georgia is 2-8 as SEC play began to ramp up.
Despite their recent failures, the Bulldogs do have a few notable wins this season as they defeated current No. 10 St. Johns 66-63 in November, and current No. 17 Kentucky by 13 points last month.
The struggles for Georgia seem to be highlighted especially when the Bulldogs play on the road as Mike White’s team has won just one out of seven games as the away team while holding a 13-3 record during home games inside Stegeman Coliseum.
Although there have been many frustrating games for Bulldog fans to endure this season, freshman center Asa Newell has been a sight for sore eyes this year as he leads his team in points and rebounds this season with an average of 15.3 and 6.8, respectively. Newell has claimed many honors already in 2025 as the Bulldog has been named SEC Freshman of the Week four times along with being named a top-10 candidate for the 2025 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award, given to the top center in Division I men's basketball.
The freshman’s name will likely be called early in the NBA draft as many analysts have projected Newell to be a top 10 selection later this spring. If Newell is able to turn these projections into reality, he will become just the sixth player in program history to be selected in the top-10 of the NBA draft.
If Auburn is able to contain Newell the Tigers will likely improve to 2-0 on the season against one of their conference rivals, completing the regular season sweep.
Tip-off is set for 3 p.m. CST on Saturday and the game will be televised on ESPN.
Do you like this story? The Plainsman doesn't accept money from tuition or student fees, and we don't charge a subscription fee. But you can donate to support The Plainsman.
Will is a freshman majoring in journalism. He started with The Plainsman in the spring of 2025.
You can follow him on X (Twitter) at @willdembo
